Good morning all!
Are there any newbies here? I would love to connect with others in their first stages of sobriety. I am a 28 year old mum of 3 with an amazing fiancé. I’ve been in denial for a long time about my drinking. But I’ve reached the point where I know now that it needs to end. Absolutely no plans or events are worth my jeopardising mine or my families future. I had a wake up call on the weekend, and since then I’ve decided I just cannot live like this anymore. I clearly cannot be a casual drinker… so it’s time to admit that enough is enough. There is so much more to life than waiting for 5pm to open yet another bottle of wine. If you’d like a sobriety text pal please let me know 
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Hi Dawn, in a way I am a newby and in a way I am not. I have been reading here for quite some years now on and off a bit. This message is actually the second time I message someone and give a small piece back to the community.
I am 45 and have been drinking pretty heavy since I was 22. In the beginning the amounts were not that much and also not daily, but pretty soon the amounts were rising. No hard liquor, just strong Belgian beers and loads of wine.
Since some time now I realise that I can not continue like this and want to stop altogether. So yeah, I’ll be your sobriety text pal if you like.
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Welcome to the forum Dawn! Glad u found us 
Im not in the very early stages of recovery (i have almost 3.5 years clean and sober) but I still wanted to welcome you to the group! This forum has been crucial to my recovery. I am 40 years old and also a mom and am married. My family is one of my biggest motivators to stay clean Hope to see u posting more!
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Thank you for the post. I completely feel what you are saying 44 years old and life has started to take me down. I’ve recently realized that i too cannot just have one drink. it also seems that my career, family, friends and all my recreational activities revolve around drinking. I am fortunate my just does not drink so i have great support and a clean home environment. So here is my day 1. wish me luck
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Good luck Nikki! I’m on day 3 now and my youngest woke me up at 5am. Usually I would be struggling to get myself together, but I was up like a light, made a coffee and am making pancakes for my others kids. The feeling of no foggy brain and body feels fantastic and it’s such a good feeling. We can do this!
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Wow! 3.5 years! Any tips or words or wisdom for how you avoided the drink on social occasions? We are very sociable people, but since the age of 17 I’ve only known alcohol to help me socialise. I’m dreading the next time people are drinking around me 
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Aw thank you so much! Thank you for still being here to offer support to newbies starting their journeys. I hope one day I can offer support to others too!
Same here, I’m more of a habitual drinker, put the kids to bed then unwind with a bottle. wine is my drink of choice even on nights out. and of course with wine mommy culture, it feels impossible to escape. Did you find any books or podcasts helped you in those early days?
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You are welcome. Thanks to you too, your post was the final nudge I needed to somehow step up my game and make serious steps, for instance using this forum more in order to help myself.
I’ve read William Porter’s book, Alcohol Explained, a few times and that supported me a lot. It is a very low key scientific introduction of what alcohol actually is and also what it is doing when entering your body and messing up the status quo (homeostasis). In a way I stopped smoking like this too years ago: just science the shit out of it and read everything about the internal process the drug is doing: like, what is a dopamine receptor and what exactely happens when I take a puff? And then the question: do I actually want this to happen?
I also listened frequently to the podcast of Annie Grace. William Porter actually was a guest there once too. I have Annie’s book on alcohol addiction, This Naked Mind, but have not read it yet. In this forum her work is often mentioned as very helpfull and I think it is an interesting piece to look at. Annie was a so called ‘succesful alcoholic’: sharp and on point during the day, no sign of a problem and succesfull in her field. But then in the afternoon/evening… Eventually she found a way out.
What also helped is that I finally started to work-out, playing with the idea for years but not taking action. It gives me a bit of structure with something to do in the evening. After two years I am pretty fit and lean. Reading recently how alcohol disrupts muscle growth and that drinking while training makes woking-out very suboptimal, is a very big extra motivation for me now.
You are 28, I am 45. I am not old but also not young anymore either. Sounds weird but you’ll get my drift when you reach my age. In my vicinity people of my age start to die. These are no drug related deaths but simply a lot of bad luck for some. Like the twin sister of my upstairs neighbor, 43, died of cancer. A small year after the diagnosis, she passed, just boom. Also a friend of my own sister, 47, died after complications (Pulmonary Embolism) after having a -normally- unharmful easy knee-surgery. Just like that… She was very very healthy.
What I am trying to say is that I have realised there is not a lot of time being on this planet as a human being. It makes me feel blessed I made it this far and is a strong reminder to take good care of my body. For my partner, my two daughters but especially for myself. I want to get as much as I can from life, and on that road alcohol is just dead weight.
Good luck.
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hi,
im in very early stages of sobriety too and would love a text pal or to join a group if there is one going!
Hi Breathnow,
Being new to the same determination is what binds us. Welcome.
What’s your story? What leads you to saying that you need to change?
hi Skaf,
I’m actually turning 45 this month and can’t see myself drinking into my late 40s-50s. It’s very exhausting. I’ve been on this cycle of stop and go, stop and go. I haven’t 100% closed the door on alcohol yet but know I need too. *knock on wood- I haven’t had any life threatening (health, loss of job, DUI) consequences yet but know that can only last so long. So basically, I don’t want to deteriorate faster. I don’t want to die. You’re right sometimes it’s not even dying from cirrhosis complication but something alcohol related like a fall → break a hip → become in-mobile and catch some sort of hospital infection, or skin breakdown/wound bc you can’t walk and there’s no one to turn you over for skin care. I’m in healthcare and have seen this. sorry I don’t mean to be morbid.
I also don’t want to continue to feel worthless and stay on this mood roller coaster as well…calm one day, low, panicky the next
Claire
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Hi Claire,
I feel you. I have been on and off myself for a pretty long time too. I don’t like the idea but evidence simply shows I can not drink in moderation like others can. It is something I have to live with I think. Sometimes I give myself some play by saying that I can drink when there is a social setting, a festival etc etc, but I know in my case it is just setting myself up for disaster later. I am in the process of accepting this.
After 25 years I am starting to get done with it. I know the pro’s, I know all the cons, and I now draw the conclusion. Nothing wrong with that if someone else told me this was the motivation for him/her not to drink anymore. Completely fine to ask yourself what is it actually adding to your life?
Recently I busted my dad (74) having hidden a small glass of gin behind a kitchen machine. It was 8am… and not even his first shot that morning. That weekend my daughter was staying there for some days and I was about to pick her up to bring her home. My dad (very distinguished man) already had some alcohol related incidents but this one with my little girl was a new low. What if he took her to a playground in the car while intoxicated? A few days later I confronted him and he admitted it right away.
One of the reasons I busted him was because of my own behaviour with drinking secretly. While not looking directly at my dad that morning something in the corner of my eye noticed it (him taking a sip and hiding the glass). I was only able to suspect this because I, shamefully, did the same tricks for some time.. It made me realise also: is this me in 30 years??
Do you happen to know why you drink? Apart from the physical addiction I mean, is there something (unrest, mental pain, something unconcious) that needs soothing? I know mine and it helps to work from there to kick the habit.
I can’t drink in moderation either..it feels really restrictive ha..so I guess that shows alcohol isn’t for me. I think part of it is that we romanticize it so much that 3 days after the worst hangover were craving again. The other part is our neurochemistry , emotional regulation is all screwed up. I’m going to brace myself for 2-4 weeks of feeling bleh/low mood (scary)…now that I’m only into Day 6 honestly I have the worse sugar cravings. I’m about to get the cookie dough ice cream out but I’m on ozempic for alcohol cravings and eating that type of stuff makes me sick 
I’m sorry to hear about your dad. Alcoholism doesn’t happen in a vacuum. My parents rarely drink but my uncles and grandparents have issues…
I kind of know my issue but it feels really generic and silly. I’m afraid of putting an aspect of my life out there if that makes sense and have been feeling lack in that department..How have you started working on your issue?
Yeah, I have an idea of my reason to drink. In a nutshell: having had an unavailable and angry father that took out his frustrations of missed chances on his children, especially me. From a very young age he humiliated me, slapped me and had an overall angry demeanor towards me. Most important part of this behavioural cocktail was the unpredictability of it. From a very young age I learned (unconsious) to alter my behaviour (be quiet) to stay out of trouble, in order to survive.
In a way my personality was unconsiously ‘split’: the real me (a recipy for pain) made way for a fake me (a pleaser, a fawning nice guy). Psychiatrist Alice Miller, author of ‘The drama of the gifted child’ explains this mechanism in detail. The unrest that I have because of this split is the reason I drink. Alcohol gives me the calmnes that never was back in the day. I am homesick for a time and place that I never had. Drinking gives me the short illusion that I am there, going back to the time where there was one thing: hope, hope for better days.
Can sound a little far fetched but this is how I feel when it comes to my need to drink. I want to go back. Going forward, meaning taking charge, choose, express yourself, showing yourself is for me a minefield full of (illusional) mental pain because back then, when I showed the real me, I was rejected in a very brutal way, for years. I am managing to get myself together but also have to accept this will be a part of me for the rest of my life.
I am very happy seeing that I do not pass this behaviour to my children as my fathers angry behaviour was passed to him by hís father (my granddad, was also a heavy drinker). I hope to stop the cycle.
Are you familiar with the Polyvagal Theory? This is something that helped me very much.
Thank you! I will be 56 this December. This is my second go-around. I was in rehab at 30 sobber up to January 30, 2021. I am my husband’s and mother’s caretaker both dementia. On January 29th my father was diagnosed with cancer us 3 moved to Florida so I could take care of my father. Then the cycle began once again. I was a high functioning drinker. Year later 2022 we returned back home. My father made it. But I lost myself. And I continued drinking. I found myself hatin myself and those around me. I became angry. While telling myself one more won’t hurt. On August 30th 2025, I could not sleep. So in my den I sat in the dark. It was so quiet all I heard was my thoughts, saying to me go ahead, it won’t hurt! I told myself, No! It has to end! I have to face the past trauma and hit it head on. I went and got that bottle stood in my bathroom and poured it out. “Starting all over” . Saving myself!
Hi I am new here. I am sober over 5 years and my family is also what motivates me to stay sober and be as healthy as I can be.
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